So I know I haven't been around the forums long but I've been a long time browser and Hobbs you really have been a god send. I always look at what's in the food I eat but I'd never bothered reading the labels of the food my boys had until I starting Googling for best quality cat foods and found your threads.

And the same gripe comes up over and over again on these forums, that the best quality foods aren't available from UK sellers. Which has started me thinking, why shouldn't UK consumers easily be able to buy these foods? If they could, wouldn't it do the cat population in this country some good? I know not everyone is interested in finding the best quality foods for their cats and are happy picking up their Whiskas with the weekly shop but isn't there a likelihood that more people would feed their cats the better quality foods if they were easier to obtain?

I have the time (and IT savvy) to be able to set up an online store for the favourites, Grau, Granatapet, Pfotenliebe, Macs etc which would allow people in the UK to be able to buy without the costs of having them delivered from Germany. I've found one of the off-putting things about importing is that you really need to order some quantity to make the cost of delivery worthwhile, but you don't really want to order that much in case your cat turns his/her nose up at it. So having a UK store would allow people to order singles if they wanted to, which would hopefully encourage people to invest a few pounds in a couple of tins of better quality food to make sure it agreed with their cats before taking the plunge on a large order.

Hobbs - I know you've been in contact with a lot of the manufacturers with nutritional questions so I may well be asking for your help with some contacts if that would be ok? I will need to get in touch with manufacturers and distributors before I could be certain that the economics of it could be made to work for all the brands but I don't see why it shouldn't.

But the real questions I have for my fellow forum users are is this something you would want? Is there enough demand for me to put the time and effort into making it happen? Getting it off the ground would mean me buying small quantities of stock and working on small profit margins to get things rolling so it would likely take a while to reach a stage where I could fulfil large orders as lots of stock = lots of risk, is this something people would be willing to accept if there was a lead time of 1-2 weeks for larger orders?

Any comments and assistance people have would be greatly appreciated. If it's been tried before by someone on here and it didn't work for whatever reason I'd be interested in talking to them about their problems.

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My "angels", Charlie, Alfie and Sebastien

I am sure that quite a few people would be grateful to have easy access to them - at the right price and for a good delivery price.

As someone posted on the A-Z thread yesterday, one German online shop offers up to 30kg delivery to the UK for 10.50 euro.

Don't forget that you will need to be a registered business to get the trade price, that many manufacturers will only sell large number tins on pallets and that for some you will have to organise shipment to the UK yourself.

Thanks Hobbs.

Through my work I have quite a lot of experience of the requirements of company registration, company insurances (insanely important if you're going to be selling food products) and VAT registration and at work we have a preferential arrangement with an accountancy firm for that purpose so I have all that information available to me. I've just been doing my research on any import regulations I need to be aware of but as they are EU companies there seem to be precious few restrictions, even when it concerns food products.

It's very early days at the moment, the main question at the moment is whether there is sufficient demand to make the effort worthwhile. After that it comes down to whether it is financially viable, which is where the quantities and shipping issues will come into play.

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My "angels", Charlie, Alfie and Sebastien

Or perhaps it is time to put the cart in front the horse and see how cheaply you could sell it for here. Then you could ask people, well, if we sold this food A for X would you buy it considering that other equal quality food, or food of lesser quality, off (for sake of argument) zooplus costs Y.

I just think that it is very easy to say "oh yes I would be interested" but if you cannot compete money-wise then any interest is going to wane very quickly, apart from a few cat food foodies.

I would definitely be interested if the prices were right and you stocked a good selection of foods. A lead time of 1-2 weeks wouldn't particularly bother me because I find Zooplus orders take about a week to show up anyway.

I've ordered from Germany, and while the company were great, excellent customer service and delivery within a week, it is kind of a hassle to navigate the sites and email them in German to see if they will ship here and how to place an order with them.

And please, if you do start it up, please stock PetNatur trays, they're Arnold's favorite but seem to have disappeared from the site I ordered from last time.

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Hi there,

It would be great if we could buy from the UK instead of Germany! Have you taken this any further?

Amy

yes I would be interested in this

Yes, this would definitely something I would be interested in. Funnily enough this is something I have thought of doing as well as I will soon be receiving a redundancy package. But when I started thinking it through, I decided to forget about it. It sounds though that you have some of the skills and contacts. I have ordered food from Germany (most of which my cat has not liked) but it would be great to have a selection here to give me the confidence to try others. Good luck. Please let us know you final decision.

Can you giveme the link to the german website please? When I buy I buy loads - plus - if I remember right aint german vat lower then outs!!! that said it maybe 19%now

Hey all, sorry been taking care of a poorly kitten and a poorly me for a few days so haven't had a chance to reply. I'm getting some emails sent off to the manufacturers for some info so once I have some responses I should be able to put a ball park figure on how much I would have to charge per tin.

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My "angels", Charlie, Alfie and Sebastien